Silence
by Silver-tongued.Words
Summary: Death. Life's change agent. It's been that way since the beginning of time. (No, vampire's don't count) But when you don't want to live, or even die for that matter, where do you go? For Elena Williams, it's a mental institute. But she was perfectly stable, why was she there? A story of a lifetime, when you've already wasted sixteen years dreaming.


She couldn't see. But then again, what was there left to look at? A beautiful, clever and bright young girl transformed into a shadow in the darkness. She was so smart, though.

She knew that taking drugs was bad in the long run. She knew that most girls were too weak and cowardly to face their problems, instead trying to kill themselves or go into depression.

She wanted to be a psychologist. So that she could cure people's pain, and make them happy again. So that they wouldn't waste their lives grieving over someone else's. So everyone would realize that innocence and happiness will never leave you, no matter how much you hate or refuse it. She found her happiness in others.

A few years ago, that is. Or it may have been months, she barely remembered anything anymore. She used to have the quickest brain in her class. Always the topper, that one. She was brilliant.

She had a family back then, a great family. They loved her, they truly did. Gave her everything she wanted but never spoiled her too much, celebrated her birthdays' with fanfare, and told her that they loved her. She never forgot that, because it was the one thing she didn't want to forget. It kept her rooted, so that she wouldn't go mad and start throwing furniture around and screaming at strangers.

She'd seen people her age come and go. Come as depressed teenagers and go as renewed souls. She never wished that for herself, even though deep down she knew that she could do that, be there in their position if she wanted to.

But why? At what, but she was happy here. As happy as a person who barely spoke three words a day and stared at a wall for hours on end could be. But that wall, the blank white one in front of her bed, was her comfort.

She could dream there. Imagine colors and shapes and faces laughing and changing on it. It was like her mind's personal movie theater, only she could see it and it kept her occupied.

Here, at the mental institute, she received good care from professional doctors and three meals a day. She had comfortable clothes, didn't need to go through the hassle of choosing a different dress everyday. She was free. Almost.

At exactly three o'clock in the afternoon, when the day was cloudy and dark, even though it was mostly sunshine, she would stand outside for half an hour like a statue, gazing at the flowerbeds and birds on the trees in the garden. It was beautiful, and artistically subtle in a way her ordinary childish vision couldn't capture to perfection, no matter how many hours she tried to understand it.

The birds' eyes held hope and happiness for the day to come, as they flew from tree to tree chattering among themselves in an unknown language she didn't read, but she felt as though they were talking to her. She often smiled to herself, maybe she should learn bird. Their language was so simple, a few squeaks and chirps and the whole crowd understood. So unlike the human language, where each word had to be thought over and explained.

She liked simple. Simple was good, it made things less complicated. But that was the whole point, wasn't it? Everything had become so very complicated, and all she did was let herself fall, without even knowing it.

And no one came to catch her. But maybe, she thought, I'm still falling, and someone's running to catch me. Maybe they care.

The mind was like a balloon, it raised hopes too high and become self expectations, and when the pressure began to build and becomes too much to handle, it bursts, leaving a thin scrap behind. Of course, it didn't happen to everyone. But some people just weren't made to be balloons. It was just a figurative example after all.

It started with a devastatingly handsome boy called Sebastian. He was amazing, top grades, bone-melting smiles and a personality which she only thought existed in the late eighteenth century.

It was perfect. He was perfect, and she had read all those soppy romance books, so she knew and she was more cautious. But this was so different. She actually started falling for Sebastian Moore, and it seemed he returned the feelings. They went on dates, and kissed. Made out, more like. But she loved every second of it. He told her he loved her. She said the same. They were just sixteen. Young love was dangerous, she knew that, but what could she do?

She was too in deep to back out now.

He began to drift away, and distant. She begged him, pleaded to tell him what he wanted, if she had done anything wrong. She didn't want to lose him, the God of her life. Yes, she knew she was becoming dependent on him, and she tried to pull herself out of it but Sebastian wouldn't let go of her.

He pulled her so deep and hard into the void that sometimes she felt her very breathing and existence relied on him. The girl she was before would have mocked her for becoming so weak and reliant, but she was oblivious. Her sensible side too begged her, but to leave him. She crushed it and threw it into a corner of her mind.

That was her big mistake.

Even her family had left her at that point.

Sebastian told her to leave him alone, but she clung tight and finally, finally his true colors showed through. He roughly pushed her aside and she fell hard. Then he told her to forget him, to break up with him, he didn't want her anymore.

Christ, she knew that such people only existed in books. And Sebastian Moore turned out to be the worst of them. He brought out her heart and ripped the barriers down, caressed it before crushing it as painfully as her sensible side.

It hurt. 'Course it did. But Elena Williams was so much stronger than that. She dug herself out of it, stone by stone, layer by layer, and finally after weeks of hard work she was free, but sadly, not for long.

Her father was a mayor, and as all mayors he had the right to sentence people to jail and take away their land or houses for government use. It was a old man driven by hate and vengeance who lead her family to fall apart. Her father had taken away his inherited land, because it was illegal, but the old man refused and was evicted and sent to a old nursing home.

Or so she thought.

From there he controlled a contract killer to murder her beautiful family and tear it apart. He came in the dead of night. She remembered that day well, too.

It was twelve thirty-six and fifteen seconds exactly and she couldn't sleep. She felt restless, and her thoughts were plagued with Sebastian, and the way he held her, told her he loved her. She had gotten up to get a drink of water and could hear her two brothers snoring in the room beside her's, and her parents' steady breathing.

She padded down the stairs slowly and made her way to the kitchen, switching the lights on, and gasped.

A man wearing a mask was pointing a dagger directly at her throat, and his blue eyes glinted.

He had told her to run. They were strangers, but he let her go that day. But she had surprised him. She refused. Said she would rather die with her family than live a life of grief and regret without them.

"Death is only a door. When your's closes, another opens. Heaven is being reunited with those you love. Remember that, and I promise you won't feel a thing." he lightly pushed her, and was gone.

A second later, four sharp gunshots were heard and screams. She remembered the screams best.

The girl stood silent. She didn't know what to do, where to go, whether to save them or not. But there was nothing left to do, they were gone. The house was quiet once more and there wasn't a single sound except her breathing.

The man appeared before her again and she whispered a promise to him.

"I will find you. And when I do, I'll kill you, just as you murdered my parents. I'll make you wish you were never born."

He cracked a smile and bowed his head.

"I await the day, maám."

That was the last she saw of him. The police came, put her in jail for a day before she was proven innocent. All along she said not a word. It was her promise to her family, and she would make sure nothing got in her way of finishing it, no, not even if she had to spend a million years in jail.

The authorities pronounced her mentally unfit, and placed her in a mental institute somewhere in Seattle. Or maybe it was Washington. She couldn't recall what they had told her. It wasn't that important though, was it?

That was the end till now. She was the living dead.

If you asked Elena Williams what day it was, she would look at you with unseeing, glazed eyes and smile before going back to staring at the wall. It was unnerving.

Her doctors worried about her, they secretly talked about her behind her back, she knew. They believed she would stay like that until she was old, and become a pain. But that was not in her plan, she intended to make it out of that hell hole before she turned twenty. Or seventeen. How old was she? She forgot.

But when she looked back at the wall, she felt a smile slowly creep up her face again. She saw shifting shadows, and it was dark. A beautiful wolf ran, a deep russet color and the woods were a blur of green and brown as he, or maybe it was a she, ran. It's paws thumped hard on the moist ground as it stopped and howled.

"Miss?" A female voice broke her trance, but she kept her gaze on the wall, which had faded back into its original white.

"Your dinner's ready."

She was leaving.

"Kiara." She spoke. She couldn't believe she remembered the girls' name, or even had a memory of knowing it.

Kiara froze. Elena Williams talked. After months of serving her and taking care of her, Elena had said something, even though it was just her name.

"Yes?" The nurse struggled to keep her voice steady and professional.

"How old am I?" The question was simple, and Kiara answered immediately.

"Sixteen, miss."

So she had been wrong. It had been only a year, but felt like decades.

"How long have I been here?" She worked her brain to keep the flow easy and as un-complicated as possible.

"Almost two years, miss." The young woman replied.

So she was wrong again. Her mind had been deceiving her again, and she cursed it.

"What did you bring me for dinner?"

"Indian rice and rolls, miss."

The woman was polite, she couldn't be rude back, she noted.

Elena slowly placed her hands on the bed and pushed herself up, and the nurse gasped, she had never seen the girl stand by herself, without support of crutches, not that she had ever needed them.

"I'll eat downstairs tonight." Elena said, and turned around, her brown gaze piercing into Kiara's blue ones.

She stood straight and tall at five feet nine, and the poor nurse before her was speechless, only taking her hand and leading her downstairs.

The mental institute cafeteria was pretty much silent, except for a few people screaming at random or quiet whispers.

Kiara placed her next to a girl around her age, and put her plate in front of her and left, her eyes dazed and hopeful that Elena Williams was finally making progress.

The girl beside her glanced at her before sitting up straighter and smiling.

"Reha Lahote." She shyly held out a hand to Elena who stared at it blankly. Manners were not forgotten, but never had she used them in those two years.

But she finally shook it, murmuring "Elena Williams."

"Why are you here?" Reha asked. Her eyes held an untouched innocence which would make anyone smile.

"I could ask you the same." The girl replied, smiling.

"You wouldn't believe me."

"And you would?"

Reha gave her a soft smile before turning back to her rice, picking at it before pushing her untouched plate away, a sick look on her pretty face. She looked part-Indian, with dark skin and eyes. But then again, so was Elena. Her mother was an Indian as well, yet her father was Russian. An odd combination, but left an exquisite face.

"You should eat."

"I'm not hungry."

There was a pause.

Elena was curious. "When did you last eat?"

The girl next to her looked away and muttered "Don't remember."

"Was it anytime this week?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Do you punish yourself?" The question was merely out of plain wonder, but she didn't know any other way to put it.

Reha gave a slight laugh. "You could say that."

She didn't ask why, and Reha didn't reply.

After dinner they went their separate ways, but Elena Williams for the first time, couldn't formulate any images of the beautiful brown wolf on her wall. There was no forest, no howls to alert her that she was falling again.

She stared for hours, late into the night, but nothing came. It was just blank white tiles and the occasional fly buzzing around.

She sighed and got up, the bed creaking under her weight. Though she might not have any left of that, so she hoped she did.

Slipping blue shoes on and wrapping a shawl around her now-frail and weak shoulders, for they had not always been like that. Once, they had been strong and broad from carrying ten kilo rice bags with her brothers everyday. But that was a far off memory, almost a dream. The fun they used to have, the teasing and laughter filled house.

She quietly walked outside, pushing the back door open and taking a deep breath of the freezing night air. It might have been minus five degrees, but Elena felt nothing. And she was wearing a light gown with a shawl and slippers.

Her dark hair blew in the light breeze, adding to the chill but she smiled in content.

It had become another habit, walking outside at twelve thirty six on the dot. She relied on her bright imagination, which introduced her to her beloved family every night, just for ten minutes.

They hugged her, and told her it wasn't her fault, that they would never blame her.

Tonight, she saw only her mother. Her mother was a beautiful woman with honey colored skin and hair and laughing brown eyes. She felt elated.

"Mum." she whispered, begging her mind to get a closer glimpse of her mother. It obliged.

Farah Williams gracefully stepped up to her living daughter and gave her an affectionate peck on the cheek.

Mother embraced daughter, tears slowly rolling down Elena's face at being so close, yet so very far.

"Ellie." That name. She hadn't heard it in months. It was her mum's name for her. Only she could call her that, and she felt loved, giving her mother a happy smile.

To anyone watching, it would look like a sixteen year old girl standing in the dark night, crying and staring into space. It made an odd picture, but wasn't that why she was there, at the mental institute?

"Ellie, what are you doing?" Farah grasped her daughters' thin arms and shook her, but Elena just smiled.

"I'm avenging your death. You didn't deserve it." she replied and her mother shook her head.

"What have I taught you? Have you forgotten it all? Elena, leave this place. I see you leaving me everyday, love. In death, you aren't even alive."

Elena laughed.

"You make no sense anymore, mother. What do you want from me? I can't do anything anymore."

"Leave. Go with Reha. You can save her as well, I know you can." Farah insisted, her lovely face twisted into sadness and desperation at seeing her child in such a condition.

There was a long silence.

"For me." the older woman whispered and Elena nodded immediately without thinking twice. She didn't say yes because she felt she owed her mother, but because she would do anything for her, even in death.

"Ellie, you have such hope for yourself, even now. Go do something that will make people remember you in the decades to come."

Ellie merely nodded before raising her hand to her mouth to cover a painful cough. She stared at her hand, there was a small streak of blood, and she could taste its metallic tinge in her mouth.

The ghost of the mother gazed sadly at her daughter.

"Will I be seeing you soon?" Elena looked up, eyes hopeful. Her imagination lasted longer tonight, she hoped it wouldn't flicker.

That hope diminished when her mum shook her head, and reached out to wipe away traces of red on her lips.

"I'll always be with you, I promise. But you must leave. Go to somewhere warmer, with more life. You'll live longer." She held her sixteen year old's hand.

"I don't want to leave you." Elena murmured, her tongue still left with the bitter aftertaste.

Farah Williams chuckled. "I know, Ellie. I know."

She pulled her into a motherly hug, and Elena wrapped her arms around thin air, but she could almost feel her mother's warmth.

"Oh, Ellie. My darling, darling, daughter. You're so very beautiful, do you know that? You can do so much, be so much. Make me proud, love. Make all of us proud." She gestured to Elena's father and brothers behind her.

Jonah and Salim Williams winked at her and her father, Vladimir Williams smiled at her, waving.

She waved and took a step back, murmuring "I love you. Stay with me, yeah?"

Her mother's tinkling laugh was permanently saved to her memory, as was the rest of her family's faces. They hadn't aged a day, just as happy and young as they had been when they died.

"Forever, Ellie. Forever."

Her mind slowed down as their forms distorted, and they were gone. Tears escaped her eyes as she felt the loss of never seeing their faces again. But she knew she had to get out of there. And take Reha Lahote with her. She would get them out there if she died trying.


End file.
